Manish Arora - crazy cool designer

I discovered a designer today on the Vogue Magazine U.K.'s website named Manish Arora (www.vogue.co.uk). This guy has to be completely insane, but in a good way. I love everything he does. Looking at his collection makes me want to paint all of my clothes in bright, bright colors.

Great decorating idea - blackboard paint

In my "real job" I am a business professor but in the summer I transform into a house painter and designer. Several months ago I bought three student rentals. This morning I was looking at thecoolhunter.net site and I was inspired by this picture to paint some of the walls with chalkboard paint. This actually makes a lot of sense, because it seems that there are a lot of students who like to write on the walls whether there is a chalkboard on it or not!

I found some really great stuff on thecoolhunter.net today, under the section called home. I love to make stuff out of recycled materials, and here's one that might be fun to try. Its a wooden chair frame covered with belts, instead of upholstery! We have a few thrift stores in my area where I could probably get these materials.

The trickiest part for me is to get the belts attached tightly and strongly enough that I could actually sit on it. Probably upholstery tacks would do the trick!

Shoe sale at Macys.com

I noticed that today, Macys.com is having a sale on many great shoes where if you buy one pair, you can get 50% off on a second pair. I particularly love the platform sandals. Here are a couple that I am really interested in. The pink and white slide is from Nine West and the other is from MICHAEL Michael Kors.

Anastasia Chatzka at etsy.com

Lately I've been noticing that I love almost everything on the Etsy.com website. Sometime soon I am hoping to open my own shop on that site. I found some adorable dresses today on the website at AnastasiaChatzka.etsy.com. The photos are also really great. I love the pinup style models! Check it out!

Call for aspiring fashion illustrators at BravoTV

I see that Project Runway is going to be starting a new series on Bravo TV in July! YIPEEEEEEE!
I can't wait.

Are there any other Christian Siriano fans out there? In case you didn't watch the last season, he was the winner and quite a fun guy. There is a new article about Christian and his recent activities in the latest July issue of Elle magazine (US edition).

There is also an opportunity on the bravotv website for aspiring illustrators to display their work. Here's how it works. You go the website and retrieve some line drawings by Daniel, a former project runway contestant, and decorate them according to your own taste, then re-submit them. Sounds like fun! There are several sketches to choose from, but I have included one example here.

Amy Butler designed fabrics, free sewing patterns

Here's a really great deal. A few days ago I posted that I had discovered Amy Butler fabrics on fabric.com. Now I discovered that she has her own website and there are some realy great free patterns on it, like the necklace cover shown here. The patterns are at amybutlerdesign.com. Isn't this clever?